Trump spends more time watching news networks than in Oval Office, says former NSA John Bolton
President Donald J Trump reportedly spends more time watching television than he does in the Oval Office, Former National Security Advisor John Bolton suggested. Trump, last month, had slammed Bolton, one of his former top aides, calling him a "creepster" and "lowlife" after he published a tell-all book 'The Room Where It Happened' on the president and his administration.
The former national security advisor, in an interview with CBS' Face the Nation, on Saturday, July 4, said that the president gets his information from a "combination" of television news and from people he trusts outside the government. When CBS' Margaret Brennan asked Bolton whether Trump's thinking gets more shaped by television or government advisors, Bolton responded with: "Well, I think it's a combination of television and listening to people outside the government that — that he trusts for one reason or another."
The 71-year-old added: "I think that if you could clock the amount of time he (Trump) spent actually in the Oval Office versus the amount of time he spends in the little dining room off the Oval Office with the cable news networks of one form or another on, it would be a very interesting statistic." Bolton made an appearance at CBS to promote his recently published memoir.
Bolton, who recently appeared at ABC News, told the outlet that he would be "troubled" if Trump won a second term this year. "We can get over one term — I have absolute confidence, even if it's not the miracle of a conservative Republican being elected in November," Bolton said last month. "Two terms, I'm more troubled about." Trump is presumably set to contest against former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, for the 2020 presidential poll.
Trump, last month, responding to Bolton's book, had tweeted: "Washed up Creepster John Bolton is a lowlife who should be in jail, money seized, for disseminating, for-profit, highly Classified information." The White House initially had stated that Bolton's memoir did not contain any classified information, however, they changed their position as the administration attempted to block his book from publication. They were unsuccessful in doing so as the former security advisor's book was published last month.
President Trump has often been accused of watching too much television and not heeding to his own advisors. The Republican leader, in 2017, had also personally addressed the accusations denying that he watches a lot of TV. Trump had tweeted saying he has "very little time for watching T.V." The president, however, often takes to Twitter to continue to respond directly to what political pundits and news anchors say about him.
A Washington Post analysis, conducted in 2018, found that Trump tweeted about Fox & Friends roughly twice per week. President Trump, however, tweeted at least three times on Sunday, July 5, complaining about medial outlets like Fox News and CNN. The president, in May, had also tweeted that he was "looking for a new outlet" after being seemingly upset with Fox News coverage about his handling of the coronavirus crisis.